Sue Stuart-Smith Audiobooks

The Well Gardened Mind: gardens, minds and the quiet traffic between the two

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.6/5 average

1 listener rating

Who is Sue Stuart-Smith?

Sue Stuart-Smith is the author of The Well Gardened Mind, the title that represents her in our catalogue. Our rule on these pages is to state only what we can stand behind, and in this case the background material available to us describes someone else who shares her surname – so rather than graft the wrong life onto the right author, we are keeping this entry short for now.

The book’s title does a good deal of talking on its own: gardens and minds, and the traffic between them. It is a premise with obvious pull in a nation that takes both its gardens and its mental weather seriously, and the quiet confidence of that title suggests an author who knows precisely what she is doing with it.

Sue Stuart-Smith in audiobooks

The Well Gardened Mind promises what its name suggests: an exploration of what tending green things does for the head and the heart. For UK listeners – a nation of gardeners if ever there was one – the appeal is immediate, and audio adds something rather fitting: this is a book you can listen to while actually doing the thing it describes.

Few pairings are as neat as a gardening audiobook and a slow afternoon in the borders, hands busy and mind fed. On that basis alone it earns its place here, and we suspect most listeners will find a good deal more in it than neatness.